The Sixty Minute Yardstick

News&Views

The Armchair Curmudgeon

March 26, 2007



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Edwards and the Sixty Minute Yardstick:



For anyone who is a survivor of some catastrophic illness, like Cancer, who has listened to the reasons that the Edwards family has chosen to continue with its presidential campaign, you have to applaud their thinking. And acknowledge that Elizabeth is right.



When you are visited with such news, you are confronted with mainly two choices: You either can fall apart and start feeling sorry for yourself; or pick yourself up and move on.



For them, and virtually everyone I’ve known who’s contracted a serious disease on a par with Cancer, the right decision becomes one of moving on with your life.



As Elizabeth pointed out, everyone is going to die sooner or later from something; the main difference between Elizabeth and anyone else is that she is likely to know what will most likely cause her death.



Moreover, it is true: Nobody knows what tomorrow will bring to any of us. And it behooves us as human beings to make the most of what time we have left on this mortal coil..



The Edwards family have made their decision. And most of us agree it is the right decision.



Elizabeth believes with all of her heart that her husband can make a difference and she doesn’t want her legacy to be that of a wife who in her selfishness denied her husband the opportunity to afford the people of a president who really cares about the country and its people.



I thought about their interview by Katie Couric on Sixty Minutes last night and how little privacy those who run for public office are afforded. During the interview, I thought that Katie was being unrelenting in her questioning and that perhaps a smidgen of politics has motivated her persistent interrogations. . Later, I changed my mind but only if that same yardstick were applied across the board to everyone running for the highest office in the land.



Why isn’t someone’s mental health just as important as their physical health?



As human beings, we are often subject to human frailities and tend to follow someone who exudes a certain amount of charisma over the more objective criteria of whether they are qualified to hold the highest office or whether they are capable and qualified to make the kind of decisions that we will have to live with as a people?



We should understand whether we are voting in an egomaniac or someone who wants to take advantage of the system for their own ends . And, perhaps, this kind of scrutiny is what’s needed to help us avoid making bad election decisions.



Why not then, if we are going to expose the Edwards to this kind of scrutiny, why shouldn’t we apply the same criteria to all of the other candidates. At the very least, it would give us, the voting public, an opportunity to understand what makes those who choose to run for president the very best candidates available. It also serve as the first step in screening out those not capable or fit to rule; or those who see their own agendas and ambitions clouding their ability to make the kind of decisions we would expect of our leaders.



Fifty years ago, a vice presidential candidate was publicly denounced because it was reported that he had been treated for Clinical Depression. Another candidate at that time was considered unfit because it was claimed that he cried when delivering a speech.



We have certainly broadened our horizons since the dirty tricks of Donald Segretti, but when it comes to electing a president, we still do not have the kind of criteria in place for judging who might or might not be fit to fulfill that role and increasingly with all of the power that such an executive wields, it would be judicious to consider having all candidates divulge their backgrounds, status of their mental and physical health and other criteria that could be instrumental in the public’s decision as to how to vote.



After all, the playing field should be level and as voters, we should be entitled to know who we are voting for and whether they can fufill our expectations.



Les Aaron

The Armchair Curmudgeon

www.lesaaron.blogspot.com